


closure

by venndaai



Category: Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Genre: Atris/The Jedi Exile - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, assorted old republic lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 13:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13009011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venndaai/pseuds/venndaai
Summary: Before she can look for Revan, the Exile needs some answers.





	closure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gamerfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/gifts).



> This fic takes place in a version of canon where Bao-Dur died during the battle for Telos. It doesn't get a lot of focus in this fic but I thought I'd give a heads up.

She only managed to ignore the coordinates in the Ebon Hawke nav computer for about three months. She'd gotten way worse at lying to herself than she used to be.

 

During those three months, she mostly worked on the ship. It was barely spaceworthy, after their escape from Malachor Five, so restoring it to good working condition took a good few weeks, and then after that there was always a system to upgrade, since the ship was a decade old. The droids were happy to help, although HK had an annoying habit of following her around asking when they were going to go after his old master. T3 didn't ask straight out, but she imagined its whistles had gotten disappointed and accusatory in tone.

Aside from repairs, the days were full of pazaak games. Atton dealt cards with careless grace, and shuffled them in his spare time, over and over again. At night when she lay on her bed she could see the games in his head, when she closed her eyes.

It was, she thought, a subconscious attempt on her part to avoid the dreams. The dreams started three days after Malachor.

She was in darkness. The Malachor academy, she thought, although she wasn't sure why she thought that, except for a very faint sound of distant storms. It was dark and empty, except for the cloaked figure at the end of the hall.

The Exile stood very still, convinced that if she gave in and ran full tilt down the hall, it would stretch out longer and longer and the figure would turn and go, or maybe just disappear, or the Exile would wake up.

Even in her dreams she couldn't say the things she wanted to say. In the back of her throat she felt the words, _What did you expect, you knew I was a coward._

She woke up and said, “We're going to visit Dantooine.”

It was a mistake. It was good to see Mical and Brianna and Visas, and their new friend Juhani, and the areas of the Enclave they were restoring, the library they'd already gotten power to, and the two local young people who were helping them in exchange for some basic training. But the place was too full of echos, she couldn't bear to see the overgrown walls, she walked through the corridors and she could hear the voices, the hum of the climate controls, the buzz of lightsabers being used in sparring. Then the quiet again, when she stood in the main atrium. Quiet, and a ghost sitting on a bench, face hidden. The Exile fled back to the ship and the empty silence of her bunk.

Juhani followed her.

"What is it?" the Exile asked, looking curiously at the one member of the new Jedi council who'd been trained by Revan, not by her.

“You should go to Kashyyk,” Juhani told her, in a soft, gentle voice. “Talk to an ex-Jedi named Jolee Bindo. He might know about... about your friend. Master Kae.”

The Exile felt a little like the breath had been knocked out of her. “Mical figured it out, then,” she said, when she'd recovered.

“Yes. He is very impressive. He will make a good Archivist.”

“Brianna-”

“She does not know. Master Marr thought it would be kinder not to tell her. Do you agree?”

“I don't know. Don't ask me.”

Deep breaths.

“Jolee Bindo?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Kashyyk?” Atton said. “Never been there. Heard it's got a lot of trees.”

“We're going near the equator,” the Exile told him. “It'll be hot. Maybe I'll finally manage to get you out of that jacket.”

“Hey,” Atton said, grinning, “you only had to ask.”  
  
  


Approaching Kashyyk, the Exile felt the planet in the force, a heavy dense ball of life, teeming with trillions of plants and animals, all bound to each other in a million tiny ways.

It was indeed hot. Atton took off his jacket, revealing very nice arms. HK sulked, and refused to leave the ship, claiming the humidity would damage his motors. T3 came with them eagerly, and when they found Jolee Bindo, the droid and the old Jedi greeted each other enthusiastically. The enthusiasm died when Bindo turned to talk to T3’s companions.

“How many times do I have to repeat myself?” the old man groused, shaking a heavy stick in their faces. “I’m not joining your damn new Jedi Order.”

“Watch it, gramps,” Atton snapped.

“We’re not Jedi, Master,” the Exile said.

 **She’s telling the truth,** T3 whistled.

Bindo looked at them silently for a while, and then said, “Well, come in if you’re coming. I hope you like Wookie tea.”

Wookie tea turned out to be something the Exile wouldn’t have thought to call tea, but was fairly pleasant.

“You say you’re not Jedi,” Bindo said, “and you certainly don’t look like Jedi, although not every Jedi does. If you were Sith, I doubt you’d be such polite guests. So what are you? You’ve both got the Force dripping off of you, and my eyes aren’t so bad I can’t see those lightsabers at your belts.”

“We’re friends of Juhani’s,” the Exile said. Perhaps not quite the truth, but close enough. “She said you could tell me about a former Jedi named Arren Kae.”

Bindo stared intently at her for a few seconds longer, and then sighed, the tension in the Force around him easing. “Why do you want to know about Arren Kae?” he asked.

The Exile had thought about this on the journey to Kashyyk, had composed and disgarded half a dozen explanations. “She was my teacher,” she said, simply. “She’s dead now.”

“Well,” Jolee said. “All right, I’ll answer your questions, but only if you tell me your story. I’m getting a feeling it’s an interesting one.”

Atton ended up doing most of the telling, and his version of the truth was much kinder than the Exile deserved, glossing over both of their pasts and focusing on the quest to defeat the Sith. The Exile could tell Bindo wasn’t quite buying it, but he seemed to enjoy it, laughing heartily at the odd joke Atton sprinkled in and sighing at the deaths of the Jedi Masters. “There was no love lost between me and them,” he said, “but still, they didn’t deserve that.”

 _Pathetic_ , the Exile thought. _Of course they did_. She had to swallow down a rising tide of disdain. Atton gave her a sharp look. “I need some air,” she gasped, and stumbled out of the dark, stuffy house.

Outside was hardly better. The humid air felt like soup, and even this close to the canopy the jungle trees crowded out most of the light. The Exile clung to the railing of the walkway, breathing heavily. _That wasn’t me. Those weren’t my thoughts._

 _Watch out,_ she heard Atton clearly send at her from inside the house, and she turned to find Jolee Bindo walking up to her. She tried to compose herself.

“You look like someone’s tapdancing on your grave,” he said, and there was a certain level of sympathy in his voice. The Exile didn’t meet his eyes.

“Tell me what’s riding you,” he said, and now she could feel it: he was concerned. For her. A perfect stranger, who brought nothing but trouble with her.

_Not all that different from you. Meddlers, both of you. Though at least you can admit it. He pretends to selfishness and stupidity. That is the form his cowardice takes._

Those were not her thoughts. That was not her.

She brushed past the old former Jedi. “I’ll tell you the rest of the story.”

Inside, Atton was pretending to drink his tea. He raised an eyebrow at her. She put her hand on his shoulder, just briefly.

She told the story of the battle for Telos and the return to Malachor briefly and simply. “She forced me to kill her,” she said, and found she had to pause for a moment, to swallow and breathe deeply. “I did not want to, but she is dead now. From things she said to me, I believe she was once the Jedi called Arren Kae.”

“Juhani was right,” Jolee said. “I do know a bit about her. She was a young knight when I was a Padawan. I never talked to her personally, but I saw her around a few times. Handsome woman. A fairly high level librarian in the big Jedi Library, I think, and that was a big deal there. When the war started- the Great Sith War, your masters called it, though I don’t know what was so great about it- she was one of the Jedi who was against fighting the Sith. I always assumed she was killed when the Sith destroyed that planet.”

“She wasn’t,” the Exile said, succinctly.

“I guess not.” Jolee offered more tea, which the Exile accepted and Atton refused. “I’m sorry I don’t have more to tell you. I left the Order during that war. I never knew what happened to any of them afterward. You’d have to ask someone who was part of the Order in between that war and the next, probably.”

“Unfortunately,” the Exile said, “they’re all dead.”

No, wait, she thought, they’re not.

This time she had no idea if the thought was hers or not. But it was true, there was her, and there was Revan, wherever she was. And she was forgetting something, wasn’t she. There was also-

No.

“I’m sure there are a few still around,” the old man said. “But you’re not gonna find them, if they don’t want to be found.”

“Well,” she said, “you gave us a lead, at least. It’s something. Thank you. I don’t know if I’ll be going back to Dantooine any time soon, but if I do, would you like me to give a message to Juhani?”

“Nah,” Bindo said gruffly, and took a large gulp of tea, to cover up some emotion, she suspected.

“Thank you for your help, and your hospitality,” she said. “T-3, if you want to stay and catch up, you can meet us back on the ship later.”

T-3 whistled its agreement.

Atton didn’t say anything until they were nearly back at the ship. “So.”

She didn’t respond.

“I thought we were going on another big quest. Finding Revan, saving the galaxy, something like that.”

“We are,” she said. “There’s just… something I need to do, first.”

She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, and then he shrugged. “Just keep me informed,” he said.

  
  


That night she was able to fall asleep immediately, and it felt like as soon as her eyes closed she was in the dream, but it was different this time. She could still feel the heat, but after a moment, she realized she was not on Kashyyk.

She was in some kind of temple, somewhere she had never been before. She was standing in a courtyard, all carved gray stone and jungle flora; when she looked up, she could see distant treetops, and huge heart-shaped leaves. It was a wonderfully vivid dream; she could hear the birds, and feel the hot humid air, and smell the overpowering fragrance of many different kinds of flowers. In front of her, two small girls were fighting with practice sabers that hummed and crackled. One was very pale, looking like she’d been drained of color. The other was larger and sturdier and darker. They looked somewhere between six and ten years old.

“Come on, Arren,” the taller child said. “Are you even trying to hit me?”

The smaller child scowled, and lunged forward. Her opponent easily moved out of the way, laughing a little. “You’ll have to be faster than that,” she said.

“I had nearly forgotten this,” a familiar voice said, from behind the Exile, and she turned, feeling her heart pound, even in a dream. The hooded figure was there, looking real and solid and only a few feet from her. The Exile stretched out a shaking hand.

The figure did not reach back. “This is a very old memory,” she said. “I cannot imagine what relevance it might have.”

“Kreia,” the Exile said, sounding broken even in her own ears. “I thought-”

“That I was gone?” Kreia interrupted. “I had hoped for that myself, but it seems I am not to be so fortunate.”

The Exile slowly let her hand drop. She looked up at the sky again. “Where are we?”

“Ossus,” Kreia said, quietly.

The larger girl knocked the smaller one’s saber hilt out of her hand. “You need to try harder,” she said.

“Maybe I don’t,” the other girl replied. “If I learn other ways to use the Force, if I get really good, I might not even need to fight anyone.”

“That’s you, isn’t it,” the Exile said.

“I fail to see how any of this is relevant,” Kreia said. “To anything.”

“Whatever,” Arren’s opponent said, turning off her saber and tossing it down. “Let me know when you decide to take this seriously.” She turned her back and walked out of the courtyard, into the shadows beneath the stone pillars. Arren watched her go, breathing hard, face screwed up in frustration.

The Exile found herself moving without quite knowing why. She knelt down by the little girl. “Hello,” she said.

The girl turned, face tilting up. She was flushed, her eyes watery. Her irises were ice blue. Like her daughter’s, the Exile thought.

“Surely you have better ways to spend your time than this,” Kreia snapped, from behind and above.

“That wasn’t very nice, what your friend did,” the Exile said to the girl.

Arren glared. “She’s not my friend,” she said. “Please don’t hug me.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

“She is just a child,” Kreia said. “No different from any other child who has not yet been shaped by struggle. There is nothing for you to learn here.”

“There’s always something to learn,” the Exile said. “I wish I could have taught you that. I wish I had taught you anything, in exchange for everything you taught me.”

Arren’s face changed from frustration to curiosity. “Why are you crying?” she asked.

I’m crying because I’m alive, the Exile wanted to say, that’s why everyone cries, but she found herself unable to speak. Kreia’s hand brushed her shoulder.

“Wake,” she said, gently.

The Exile tried to protest, but the dream was already disappearing.

  
  


“Well,” Atton said. “This place competes with Malachor for ‘most fucked up planet in the galaxy’. You sure can pick them, boss.”

“Shut up,” the Exile said.

“I’m just saying,” Atton said, peering at his instruments. “It’s going to be a hell of a trick, avoiding those lightning storms on the way down.”

“Atton, you piloted this ship out of an exploding asteroid field. You landed us on Malachor. You can do this.”

“Yeah, and we barely got off Malachor again,” Atton grumbled, but he started the descent sequence. The Exile put a hand on the navigation console to balance herself as acceleration began to take hold.

She could feel Ossus, swooping up to meet them. It was quiet, but the echo was clear. More distant than Malachor; some thirty years’ distant, as best she could put together.

The ruins of the library had not been hard to find, from space. The vast underground compex had shown up clearly on the sensors, as had the imposing broken pillars that were all that remained of the exterior structure.

They parked the Hawk in the lee of a cliff and shut it down entirely, hoping that would be enough to protect it from lightning damage. Atton followed her down a long canyon and up a row of ancient stone steps, half-buried in sand. The two pillars soared up on either side of the last line of steps. One was a third shorter than the other. A large section of pillar lay on its side some distance away. The Exile tried to mentally overlay a hot, loud jungle, a colorful courtyard, on top of the desolation, and failed.

“What the hell happened here?” Atton asked. His voice was dry and scratchy, and he had to shout to be heard over the wind and the distant crash of thunder.

“What always happens,” the Exile replied. “Us.”

She climbed up over the last of the steps. There was a plasticeel dome just visible there, the top of it rising out of the sand. “Help me dig,” she said, and got to work uncovering the entrance to the underground structures of the largest Jedi complex ever built.

By the time they were finished, the dim light had faded, but they hadn’t been hit by lightning, so she counted that as a win.

She touched the door. “I have to use the Force to open it,” she said. “Just a tiny bit.” She looked at Atton, questioningly.

“I’ve told you already,” he said, shrugging uncomfortably. “I don’t mind. I can’t even feel anything when you do it.”

She nodded, and reached through him, to the living Force on the other side, and drew a thin tendril out to brush against the door. It opened at that mild touch, irising out from the center.

The Exile stepped down into a dusty tomb for knowledge.

The howling of the wind and the rumble of thunder were almost immediately cut off, as was the smell of ozone from the lightning storms. In here she could smell only the faintest traces of must. The place had been well preserved. It was very much dead, however. There was no noise at all, and it made her ears ring with imagined sounds.

The entrance corridor opened into a wide deep atrium- she would have called it high-ceilinged, but she stood at the top of a tall staircase, near the ceiling of the place, and that changed her perspective, and gave her the feeling of looking down into a deep well. It was perfectly dark, and she drew on the Force again to let her see without light.

Someone brushed by her shoulder.

She spun around, but already knew that there was no one else in the vast open space. But the hairs on her arm were still standing up, and she could feel a faint trace of wind. She looked again, and there the person was, an imposing young woman perhaps ten years younger than the Exile herself, in embroidered white robes, her pale hair piled up in intricate braids. She strode confidently down the stairs, and the Exile followed, pulled in her wake.

When they reached the bottom step things changed again. The first thing that hit her was the change in the air. It no longer smelled stale and dead, but moved around her, carrying a hint of overheated wires and the hum of computer banks, and the low murmurs of many voices, and hundreds of footsteps passing through miles of corridors. There was light now, thousands of globes floating in the air. The woman at her side walked past archivists, students, knights and researchers without more than the occasional brief nod. The Exile hurried to stay by her side, avoiding bumping into any of the other ghosts out of a deep subconscious fear.

“Is it this place?” she asked. “Or is it you?”

Arren Kae did not answer. “She can’t hear you,” Kreia said. The Exile blinked. Kreia was leaning against a marble wall, head turned towards her younger self, eyes still hidden by the hood of her robe, mouth pressed into a thin line. Again the Exile felt the intense desire to reach out to her, and again she was stopped by a gripping fear that she would feel nothing.

“This is… an echo?” the Exile asked.

Kreia nodded. “The echoes never end,” she said. “They will not give us peace.”

Arren Kae stopped suddenly. The Exile saw that she was facing another woman of about the same age, tall with golden-brown hair long and loose, in the travel-worn clothes of an active Jedi. The Exile’s momentum carried her a few steps forward, so she was able to see Arren Kae’s face settle into blank coldness.

“Master Sunrider,” she said.

“Hello, Arren,” the stranger said, uneasily. “I’m looking for Master Odan-Urr, do you know where-”

“How goes your war?” Arren interrupted.

“Badly,” Sunrider snapped. “Excuse me, please, I’m in a hurry.”

Arren stepped aside, and Sunrider brushed past her. Watching, the Exile was suddenly lost in a moment of strange recognition. With her white hair, white robes, rigidly straight posture and expression of simultaneous hauteur and loneliness, Arren looked just like Atris. The Atris that the Exile had known before the war.

“Young fool,” Kreia said. “Look at her. She knows nothing, and thinks she knows everything. She cares only for her books and computer banks.”

“This was a beautiful place,” the Exile said. “I can see why you cared for it.”

“It was only the smallest fragment of a vast and intricate puzzle,” Kreia said. “The loss of Ossus pushed me to seek out that greater picture. Without that impetus, I would have remained imprisoned by my own provincialism. The death of this world strengthened me.”

The Exile thought that wasn’t really the right way to look at it, but she didn’t say so.

“A thousand Jedi,” Kreia continued. “Ten million civilians. An entire planet’s biosphere. Were they just a sacrifice used to harden those of us who survived? Was that the Force’s plan?”

“That would be appalling.”

“Mmm.”

Arren Kae sighed, and rubbed at one eye, still apparently unaware of the two observers she was standing between. She turned on her heel, and began to resume her interrupted progress down the long hall. Kreia made to follow. The Exile grabbed at her arm, making contact closer to her elbow than to the stump of her wrist.

“Wait,” she said. “We should talk. Please. There’s so much we need to- so much that I want to talk about.”

“If there had been more I could have told you, I would have,” Kreia told her, with such intensity, such emotion, that the Exile’s breath caught. Kreia’s face tilted up, and the Exile found herself confronted by eyes as blue as an ice giant’s atmosphere. “Do you still not understand that?”

Someone shouted her name. She wanted to ignore them, but there were hands on her shoulders, shaking her. Angrily, she turned, and the world went suddenly dark and silent. She blinked, drew on the Force, and her pupils widened, took in the sight of Atton, staring at her worriedly.

“I hate it when you take off like that,” he said. “Not that I can’t handle myself. But I was worried about you. This place is a maze.”

He lifted up his humming lightsaber, and cast light on their surroundings, and the Exile saw the Library as it really was: a lightless, lifeless, nearly airless mausoleum, every surface covered in a thin layer of sand or dust.

“Not the worst date you’ve ever taken me on,” Atton continued, his voice light and deceptively steady, echoing in the emptiness, “but not great, either.”

“Why are there so many places like this?” the Exile murmured, not sure if she was asking him or not. “Even when the Room of a Thousand Fountains on Coruscant was full of light, this place was dark- and now the fountains are silent, and so is Malachor, and Katarr- will the same thing happen to Dantooine, again, and will we rebuild, again-”

“Calm down,” Atton whispered, his free hand touching her arm, fear glinting in his eyes. “Can you just- can you tell me what you’re looking for?”

The Exile breathed out, slowly. “Nothing,” she said. “Let’s go back.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Atton said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

 

She didn’t speak to him again for three days.

T-3 beeped and bumped at her and generally made itself as irritating as possible, but she stayed in the crew quarters, eyes closed, pretending to meditate, and at least that led HK to decide she was being boring and not bother her. Atton took the ship out of orbit of Ossus and set a course to somewhere; the Exile didn’t ask where.

But she wasn’t alone, for those three days.

 _What’s it like, being dead?_ she thought, loudly, and heard the whisper of a reply,

 _Cold_.

On the third day she went into the cockpit, and said, “Want to play a round of pazaak?”

They played best out of five. He won four times.

“You’re distracted,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and then, “No, really, I am. I haven’t been fair to you lately.”

Slowly, almost nervously, Atton patted her hand. “It’s fine,” he reassured her. “I just want you to find whatever you’re looking for. Do you know where we’re going next?”

She rested her elbows on the table, and let her head fall down until it was pillowed on her arms. “Telos,” she said, muffled. “But I don’t want to go.”

She heard him moving, and then felt arms settle awkwardly around her shoulders, and she nearly cried then.

  


The Ithorians had buried Bao-Dur at the top of a cliff, overlooking a pristine bay, white sands and blue seas. Atton and the Exile walked through a sea of scratchy mid-calf length grass to reach a pyramid of stacked smooth stones. They searched around until they had found two more to add to the top.

“Where are you?” the Exile asked, but the wind didn’t answer.

_Would you rather have him than me?_

“Shut up,” she whispered, and felt the weight of Atton’s gaze on her, but he stayed silent, just focused on carefully balancing his stone.

They both remembered where to find the entrance to the underground complex, but the Exile had expected some form of resistance, and she could tell Atton was also unnerved by how easy it was for them to reenter. There was no sign of the handmaidens, but the place was not abandoned. The lights were still on, and air and heat still flowed through the pristine white corridors.

“I don’t suppose,” Atton said, “that we could go somewhere that’s not creepy, next time.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.”

“Naturally,” he grumbled, and kept his hand on the lightsaber hilt at his hip.

At the final door, the Exile hesitated. “Wait here,” she said, and when Atton opened his mouth to protest, she placed a finger on his lips. He pressed them together tightly, and she could feel his dissatisfaction in the Force.

_Fine. Jedi business. I understand._

She wanted to correct him, but there was an urgency burning in her blood, a feeling that there was no more time. She turned, and the door opened for her, and she passed through, and over the long bridge to the center of the complex.

Atris was there waiting for her.

“I knew you would return,” said the other ex Jedi, and she looked like a spectre, gaunt and as pale as the white robes she still wore. The Exile couldn’t help but flinch from what she saw in Atris’s face.

The Exile stopped moving with several feet still between them. “I came to ask you what you know of a Jedi named Arren Kae,” she said, and watched Atris’s expression fracture. The woman did not move, but held herself very still, as though she was afraid of coming to pieces if she did not hold herself together tightly. “She left her daughter here, long ago.”

“She did not,” Atris said, distantly. “It was the father. General Yusanis. I never met her until- you knew her as well as I did, as one of the old masters, she taught Revan, remember- except you don’t. Neither of us did. She obscured the memories in our minds.” Her hands were shaking. “It all seems very long ago, does it not?”

“You knew the General, then?”

“Yusanis became an oathbreaker for her,” Atris said. “He would not have gone to war, if he had not loved her.”

 _He was a fool,_ said the whisper in the Exile’s mind. _He loved an echo, not a person he would never care to understand._

“He returned disgraced with the child.”

“That’s the piece I’m missing,” the Exile said. “Why would she abandon her daughter?”

Atris didn’t seem to be listening. “He was weak,” she said. “That is what I always thought. Because he made the choice that I did not.”

The Exile grabbed Atris by the shoulders. “Atris, stop this,” she cried, shaking the other woman. “Let it go.”

“How can I!” her old friend said, pushing her away. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. “Every time I try to, you reappear!” She staggered, and fell to the ground, and turned her head away to hide her face.

The Exile stretched out her hands. “If it’s my forgiveness you need,” she said, hearing the anger and frustration in her voice, “then you have it, take it, it’s yours.”

Atris made a choked sound. “You fool,” she said. “It isn’t your forgiveness I want. It’s your love.”

Silence. Atris sobbed quietly. The Exile stared at her back.

 _I think she would have made a good Traya,_ the ghost murmured. _But I ought to have anticipated that you would be able to prevent that._

“I’m sorry to mess up your plans,” the Exile retorted.

Someone was calling her name. She turned, and saw Atton in the doorway at the end of the long hall, silhouetted by light.

“I didn’t get the answers to my questions,” the Exile said.

_Let it go. Please._

Kreia had never begged her for anything before.

“If that’s what you really want,” the Exile said. She was bone-deep tired, more tired than she could ever remember being before, more tired than she’d been even in the Traya Core after the final duel.

The white corridor seemed to stretch out forever, but somehow, she made it to the other side, and Atton’s arms.

“Come on,” he whispered. “Let’s go home.”

She didn’t argue.

  


Alone in her quarters on the Ebon Hawk, she closed her eyes, and listened to the hum of the engines, to the small sounds of the droids on the other side of the ship, to Atton’s distant breathing. Kreia sat across from her, mirroring her crosslegged pose. The Exile knew this, despite not opening her eyes, or reaching out to touch.

_So. Will you finally give up this search with no end?_

She didn’t answer.

 _So many demands for your love, your attention,_ the ghost said, _and you’re here, chasing a dead enemy, when you could be with your former friend, the fallen Master, or your paramour, the fool._

“I think that probably makes me the fool, wouldn’t you agree?” the Exile murmured, barely moving her lips.

_The Force makes fools of us all._

“I’ll agree with you on that.”

_You must agree with me on more than that. You must, or there is no redemption for any of us._

And now we get to it, the Exile thought, and felt the ghost nod grimly in response, and then she thought, oh, now there is no solitude even in my own mind. All right then.

_I told you what I believe to be true about the Force, about the endless struggle it puts us through for some pernicious reason of its own. And I told you that perhaps it could be stopped._

“You really believe that?”

_I must believe that peace, that balance, is possible, even if I am too limited to see it myself._

“You think Revan can really stop the cycle?”

_Not Revan. You. You took the first step. And you have already begun to set those around you on the first steps to freedom._

“I wish I could have freed you,” the Exile whispered. There was silence, and then, astonishingly, the sensation of dry lips, pressed to her forehead. The Exile held perfectly still. It was over in less than a second, and the next breath she took felt more like a sob.

 _You did,_ Kreia said, and the echo of her voice sounded more human and alive than it ever had even in life. _How could you not know that? I was in darkness, and there was no way out, and then there was you._ A hand, laid lightly over hers. _You were my salvation._

“I killed you.”

_Exactly._

The Exile laughed. Pressed her hands to her face. “I hate you.”

_Hatred is better than apathy, at least. Now. You know what you must do. You have been avoiding it, but you know that you cannot change the hearts of an entire galaxy alone. There is only one who might have that power._

“You really think so highly of her?”

_If not Revan, then who? There will never be a greater hero to pin our hopes to; so we must go to  her, or despair._

“I’m not ready to despair,” the Exile said, and found that it was true. “Not quite yet.” She opened her eyes, and saw nothing but the bulkhead in front of her, but that didn’t shake her the way she had been afraid that it would. “Why did you never return for Brianna? Did you actually fight in the war? My war, I mean? Wouldn’t I remember you?”

No answer. The Exile sighed.

T3 followed her into the cockpit. She stood there, uncertain, unsteady, for a while, until Atton spoke, his voice steady, his back not turning.

“She’s here, isn’t she? Her… ghost, or whatever.”

The Exile nodded, even though he couldn’t see it.”

“Fuck,” Atton said. “Have I ever told you I hate the Force?”

“The two of you have that in common, then,” the Exile heard herself say, and then she heard herself laugh, high and weak.

Atton swiveled his chair around to face her. There was tired resignation on his face. “This is the way it was from the beginning,” he said. “I wanna love you, I gotta deal with her too. I accepted it then, and I do now.”

“That isn’t fair,” the Exile said.

Atton shrugged. “It’s fine.”

 _Maybe the fool has some wisdom in him after all,_ whispered the ghost.

The Exile turned to the navcomputer. Her finger hovered over the selection screen.

 _You are not running away,_ Kreia said. _Not any more. You are running to. You are running towards a possible end to our exile._

The Exile tapped the button.

“Punch it,” she told Atton.

  
  
  



End file.
